Headlines

Argentina’s money supply is surging as the country deals with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, stoking inflation fears and increasing the chances of a chaotic debt default next month, Bloomberg News reported. Since the country is cut off from credit markets as it nears default, it can’t borrow to fund stimulus programs, as other countries in the region are doing. Instead, the central bank is emitting massive amounts of money to cover government programs, threatening to drive up an inflation rate that is already among the highest in the world.

South Africa is considering bailing out yet another state-owned company, at a time when it needs all the money it can get to revive an economy felled by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The National Treasury said Tuesday it’s mulling more aid for the nation’s largest agricultural lender, the Land and Agricultural Development Bank, in the form of a recapitalization and more guarantees on its debt. Last week, the state-owned national airline failed to convince the government it needs extra financial aid, although talks on alternatives for South African Airways continue.

The number of soured U.K. commercial property loans started rising in 2019 for the first time in eight years. Now, it’s set to skyrocket. The coronavirus outbreak will trigger as much as 10 billion pounds ($12.3 billion) of losses and write-offs on loans tied to U.K. stores and malls, according to a survey of lenders by Cass Business School. That’s after a slump in retail property saw the value of bad loans spike by more than a third last year, though to a still relatively low 2.9 billion pounds.

In the second week of April, deep into India’s initial 21-day lockdown to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, senior officials at Bajaj Finance Ltd. held a conference call, Bloomberg News reported. The prognosis wasn’t good. In just 10 days the keystone shadow lender had lost 350,000 customers and almost 50 billion rupees ($651 million) in assets under management. Small and medium enterprises were under strain and it was considering setting aside money for losses in case large borrowers went under.

The collapse of Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. after the briefest of fights indicates the world’s weakest airlines have little time to secure funds before they succumb to the coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported. The debt-laden carrier became the outbreak’s biggest airline scalp when it handed control to administrators on Tuesday. A near-halt in passenger revenue overwhelmed the Brisbane-based company in less than two months. “We should get used to news of this kind,” said Volodymyr Bilotkach, a lecturer in air-transport management at the Singapore Institute of Technology.

The South African government will work with unions to ensure that a new financially viable and competitive airline emerges from South African Airways (SAA) business rescue process, the Public Enterprises Ministry said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The airline entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December, since then it has had to suspend all commercial passenger flights due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

Offshore oil driller Valaris PLC is preparing to start talks with creditors to see if they can agree on terms for a possible bankruptcy filing, as it grapples with a $6.5 billion debt burden and an unprecedented plunge in U.S. crude prices, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Reuters reported last month that the London-based company was working with debt restructuring advisers as it struggled to cope with a rig accident and falling energy prices, Reuters reported. Since then, U.S.

Abu Dhabi-based KBBO Group, once one of NMC Health Plc’s biggest shareholders, plans to restructure its debt and is weighing strategic options for the business, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. KPMG LLP is advising the privately-held investment firm on the asset review along with ways to address the company’s debt load, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Spain’s economy could contract this year by more than 12% in a worst-case-scenario forecast by the country’s central bank, the first official figures that spell out the potential toll of the coronavirus pandemic on the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. The economic shock could push the unemployment rate to as high as 21.7% this year, undoing gains achieved in the aftermath of the 2008 global recession and the subsequent European debt crisis. At nearly 14%, Spain’s unemployment rate is already one of the highest in the developed world.

India’s banks are freezing credit lines to shadow lenders as the coronavirus crisis shuts down commerce in Asia’s third-largest economy, but leaving this sector in the lurch risks wider financial contagion, Reuters reported. All major state-owned and private banks have stopped lending to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) due to concerns about their financial health as businesses they lend to reel from the impact of the pandemic, four industry executives, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation, told Reuters.